"Pay for performance has nothing to do with student achievement," said Weaver, a middle school science teacher from Harvey, Ill.
Think about that for a moment. Think long and hard. Relish the idiocy of that remark.
There were some others, and fortunately one of the online comments at the end of the article called him on it:
"We'll think about pay for performance if the president and Congress are paid for their performance"
was countered with
" The Congress and the President can be voted out of office. How many years does it take to fire a bad teacher thanks to your crappy union? "Besides, don't you love the Congress now that it's run by so-called Friends of Education? And if Clinton gets elected, what will you say then?
This man isn't fit to lead a Girl Scout parade, yet he's the president of the largest union in America. He's legally entitled to the money of millions of teachers who don't want him to have it, but cannot be teachers unless they pay him. This is legalized extortion, and it must stop.
2 comments:
Merit pay? OK. Based on my evaluations, I'd doubtless receive some of that. But the devil is in the details, and knowing what evil lurks in the hearts of men as I do, I've little doubt that those who would receive the lion's share of such monies would not likely be great classroom teachers.
That's not an absolute argument against merit pay, just an observation on human nature and the inevitability of unintended consequences, particularly when it's politicians who are imposing political solutions on education issues and problems.
Please click on my "merit pay" link in the left column of the blog, or at the end of the post, to see that I've addressed such concerns before.
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